Thursday, December 4, 2014

"As God is my witness, as God is my witness it's not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never make another ruffled Christmas tree skirt again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never make another ruffled Christmas tree skirt again."From a little-known film called "Gone With The Drop Cloth" (I kid...I kid...sorta)I made a drop cloth tree skirt from the instructions from The Pinning Mama The instructions were great and I liked how it turned out, but be warned - it is a LOT more work than you think. Thank God the instructions used hot glue - if it had to be sewed, I wouldn't have it finished until next Christmas.

The decorations for this year were natural and neutral. The "naturals" actually came from 5 boxes of scented, decorative potpourri I bought at HomeGoods over the past few years. The first thing I did was open it all up and set it to air out on the sun porch for about a month. I hot glued ribbon to the pieces and that was it. Ditto the pine cones, which I've collected & either painted or glittered over the past years. There are some silvery ShinyBrites, and mercury glass hearts. These came strung on red velvet in a group (HomeGoods again), and I separated them and hung them separately.

The tree topper is a twine ball I made and painted grey and silver - thanks to The Thinking Closet, and the pink ball in the middle of the tree is my favorite childhood ornament - a ShinyBrite that says "Silent Night". Sometimes, your color scheme takes a back seat to nostalgia :)My mantel was inspired by this stunning photo from Restoration House. The blog seems to be defunct, but I hope somehow she learns how much she inspired me.

I ordered the birch branch from Etsy! The lovely Christine in Maine cut it to my specifications for an astoundingly small amount of money. It was worth it to see the look on the face of the guy at the Post Office when I explained it was a tree branch :D Please stop by and see what she offers on AdHocStock!The burlap-wrapped Christmas tree was the ugliest thing on the $3.00 shelf at Target. I spray painted it as I did my tree and tarted it up with some little baubles. I love how it turned out.